The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Cities:
Many cities are interested in understanding and developing insight into micro-climates (e.g. temperature, humidity, barometric pressure), pollution levels (e.g. noise, CO, SOx, NOx, particulate matter, Ozone, HC, UVA/B and other pollutants), vehicular congestion on the roads, where potholes are, where crimes is in progress, where there is meth activity, likely terrorist activity, where non-working lights are, where bus routes can be optimized, how to communicate with citizens of impending disasters (e.g. chemical spills, tsunami, earthquake, criminal on the loose, wild animal in the neighborhood), how to improve city resiliency, security and flexibility in case of disasters, and how to improve city to provide citizen communication, how to reduce the carbon footprint, how to manage parking spaces, provide automatic/accurate charging/advance parking, how to optimize trucks movement in the city, how to detect when and where gun shots might have been fired, understand where an explosion might have taken place, understand the city areas where there is no human activity or traffic, understand when dangerous animals such mountain lions, coyotes, bears might have entered the urban boundary, and/or where garbage dumps might be overflowing, to name a few.
Utilities:
Many utilities are interested in reducing the labor cost of reading water, gas, and electric meters, and improve the accuracy, how to sense outages, how to sense the overall needs and patterns of the neighborhoods, how to provide economic and yet fast internet access to all its citizens. The utilities might be interested in knowing how the electrical load varies during the day for individual dwelling or a neighborhood. Utilities might also be interested in optimal management of maintenance and service calls and routes to maximize efficiency.
Homes:
Many home owners are interested in providing security to the family members, where there are window or door break-ins by burglars, to provide alerts when aged people are in trouble, turn home lights On/Off depending on given criteria (when a person is not in the room, turning lights randomly On/Off when the family is out of home), monitor entry at the front door, allowing access and monitoring specific people coming in and out, e.g. cleaners, Sears repairman), how to ensure room comfort (temperature, humidity), how to safe environment (e.g. CO, LPG, children safety), how to improve the efficiency, reduce cost, reduce energy consumption of the home utilities, how to handle emergencies. Home owners are also interested in monitoring the drop-offs at the front door and making sure the goods left by the courier services at the front door are not stolen and at least detected, when there is smoke in the room, monitoring family members, e.g. baby monitoring.
Offices:
Many commercial property owners are interested in improving their efficiency, reduce cost, reduce energy consumption, and reduce the carbon footprint, how to improve security, how to detect room occupancy, how to ensure conference room comfort, how to provide indoor location and direction, how to ensure optimal lighting conditions for occupants, how to provide balanced lighting between on natural light in the room coming through the windows and room light. Office spaces may also be interested in ensuring room comfort (temperature and humidity).
Public Places:
Many mall, stadium, airport et al operators are interested in ensuring security, detecting impending disasters and public safety, preventing stealing and vandalism, and detecting non-working lights. Similarly, many educational institutions are interested in preventing vandalism, student assaults, and dangerous situations, providing ubiquitous internet access, and detecting overflowing garbage areas. Many retailers are interested in preventing theft, monitoring empty/low supplies, understanding customer preferences, reducing energy consumption, maintaining temperature control, and realizing heavy traffic areas. City officials and government agencies might be interested in learning beforehand any suspicious activity.
Industrial/Agricultural:
Many industrial property management are interested in detecting dangerous gases, ensure worker safety, preventing theft, ensuring adequate lighting and comfort, reducing energy consumption, maintaining temperature control, and optimizing good routes within the factory. Many agricultural operators have similar interest.
Increasingly, they all use LED bulbs.
Further, in most homes and offices, every room or an area there are one or two vents that blow air in specific direction. These vents can be in the floor, in the ceiling, or in the side wall. The direction in which the air blows is generally decided by the register cover at the end of the vent. It is fixed based on how the register is stamped. In some cases, in addition to the register cover, right under or behind the register cover, there are one or more fins that can be mechanically adjusted or rotated with a lever to either open or close the vent or change the direction of the air flow or shut-off the air flow. As a result of this fixed configuration, some rooms are either too hot or too cold. Also in some cases, people sitting in different parts of the same room may feel either too hot or too cold. Most dwellings or offices or other areas have only one thermostat or maybe two. Additionally, in most homes the thermostat(s) and the vents are far apart to able to closely correlated to each other and establish a good feedback control system. And most HVAC systems are central. Since vents are mechanical/fixed with a lever that allows the vents to be manually controlled fully closed/open or in between, there is neither any control of the direction of the air flow, nor the amount of air that is blown in a given room. Individual rooms in the home are also not tuned to specific comfort needs of the individual residing in that room.